anks of a stream, some bowshots away. He went, and the
Paspaheghs rested under the trees until the old men of the village
came forth to lead them through the brown fields and past the ring of
leafless mulberries to the strangers' lodge. Here on the green turf mats
were laid for the visitors, and water was brought for their hands. Later
on, the women spread a great breakfast of fish and turkey and venison,
maize bread, tuckahoe and pohickory. When it was eaten, the Paspaheghs
ranged themselves in a semicircle upon the grass, the Pamunkeys faced
them, and each warrior and old man drew out his pipe and tobacco pouch.
They smoked gravely, in a silence broken only by an occasional slow and
stately question or compliment. The blue incense from the pipes mingled
with the sunshine falling freely through the bare branches; the stream
which ran by the lodge rippled and shone, and the wind rose and fell in
the pines upon its farther bank.

Diccon and I had been freed for the time from our bonds, and placed in
the centre of this ring, and when the Indians raised their eyes from the
ground it was to gaze steadfastly at us. I knew their ways, and how
they valued pride, indifference, and a bravado disregard of the worst an
enemy could do. They should not find the white man less proud than the
savage.

They gave us readily enough the pipes I asked for. Diccon lit one and
I the other, and sitting side by side we smoked in a contentment as
absolute as the Indians' own. With his eyes upon the werowance, Diccon
told an old story of a piece of Paspahegh villainy and of the payment
which the English exacted, and I laughed as at the most amusing thing in
the world. The story ended, we smoked with serenity for a while; then I
drew my dice from my pocket, and, beginning to throw, we were at once as
much absorbed in the game as if there were no other stake in the world
beside the remnant of gold that I piled between us. The strange people
in whose power we found ourselves looked on with grim approval, as at
brave men who could laugh in Death's face.

The sun was high in the heavens when we bade the Pamunkeys farewell. The
cleared ground, the mulberry trees, and the grass beneath, the few rude
lodges with the curling smoke above them, the warriors and women and
brown naked children,--all vanished, and the forest closed around us.
A high wind was blowing, and the branches far above beat at one another
furiously, while the pendent, leafless vines